Student Question
What is the significance of Darl's thoughts on sleep, being, and not being in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying? How does Darl's comment, "And so if I am not emptied yet, I am 'is'" reflect Faulkner's style?
Quick answer:
Darl's reflections on sleep, being, and not being highlight his intuitive nature and Faulkner's use of stream of consciousness. Through Darl, Faulkner explores dual realities—internal and external—revealing Darl's existential struggle and his perception of life beyond mere farm duties. His comment, "And so if I am not emptied yet, I am 'is'," reflects his struggle with identity and reality, embodying Faulkner's style of delving into complex psychological landscapes.
Darl is the most perceptive and intuitive of the novel's narrators, and the reader hears his voice more than any other character. The other characters are in some way limited in their narrations (Jewel is angry: Vardaman is young; Dewey Dell is consumed with her pregnancy; Cash is overly regulated and practical), so any sense of sensory perception most likely comes from Darl.
Faulkner's stream of consciousness technique is highly illustrated in Darl's sections as his mind wanders between his own internal reality and the external reality in which he is forced to participate. In many cases, Darl is able to comment on more than one reality at a time.
In this particular scene, his notion of sleep gives the reader a true impression of his highly intuitive and perceptive nature. Sleep to Darl is not simply a rest from work, but an escape from a reality that he is seeing as increasingly comical. He is also exploring his own sense of being which is juxtaposed to Vardaman's confusion of death, Jewel's status as a family outcast, and Dewey Dell's new being growing inside of her. To Darl, being alive is much more than farm duties. He senses nature and others.
Oftentimes, as is common with this narrative style, Darl is confusing. His discussion about being emptied for sleep ends with the line "And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is." Here Darl is struggling with two senses of selves: Darl as a son and brother, and Darl as an amorphous concept. In addition to dealing with the death of his mother in the moment, Darl is constantly searching for this concept, and it is this search that contributes to his insanity.
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